A run ‘n gun filmmaker’s POV on the business and creative world of new media and web tv

Zodiac

March 11, 2007

I love David Fincher (dir). There isn’t one David Fincher movie I saw that I didn’t like (Fight Club, The Game, Panic Room, Se7en). So my expectations for his newest filmZodiacwere high (note: I never saw Alien 3…). But he delivered. This film is very different than any of Fincher’s other works. The second half of Zodiac feels very similar to Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can. Perhaps this is Fincher’s transition movie before he tries other more “serious” films.

For those of you who never heard of Zodiac, the self-named Zodiac was a serial killer in the 60s who tried to take credit for as many as 37 murders, although police only confirmed five. During that time, Zodiac became a media sensation, as he taunted the ineffective police and left cryptic messages for the media and public.

The theme of the movie centers around cartoonist Robert Grayson (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Inspector David Toschi’s (Mark Ruffalo) obsession over the Zodiac case. The movie runs long at 2:40, and for the longest time, you wondered whether Grayson and Toschi’s characters would ever interact more than a passing glance. I won’t go into the plot, because a lot of people don’t know how this case ended. If you got about 3 hours to spare, this is a good flick to check out.